AI start-up Eigen attracts strategic investment from ING for its NLP technology

London-based artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Eigen Technologies has completed its Series B round raising over $42 million funds, and formed a strategic partnership with ING to develop use cases for natural language processing (NLP) technology in financial services.

The insurtech has received an investment of $5 million from ING, bringing the overall funds raised to over $60 million. ING's investment follows on from its $37 million Series B round in November 2019.

This investment is a part of a broader strategic partnership between the two companies that combines Eigen’s NLP technology with ING’s expertise in the application of machine learning to financial services.

Eigen’s NLP technology is already used by ING in areas such as LIBOR replacement and loan operations. By working together, both companies aim to speed up the development of use cases in areas such as trade finance and SME banking. With Eigen, ING will work on establishing NLP models tailored to the financial industry’s needs for data extraction.

ING is the second strategic investor that the company has brought on board, alongside Goldman Sachs who co-led Eigen’s Series A round in 2018. Earlier in 2018, the start-up also partnered with specialist insurer Hiscox to automate multiple internal processes at the firm.

Eigen co-founder and CEO Lewis Liu said: “Since our foundation, one of Eigen’s greatest strengths has been the deep and strategic relationships we have with our clients and partners. In the years we have worked with ING we have found them to have some of the most advanced thinking in the market on the application of machine learning in financial services, something that comes from their fantastic innovation culture. To have ING join us as both an investor and strategic partner is a great privilege.”

Benoît Legrand, ING’s chief innovation officer and CEO of ING Ventures said: “Eigen offers a strategic capability in the intelligent operations domain, deployed in use cases across retail as well as wholesale banking. This partnership will allow both companies to work closer together when implementing use cases through data and process analysis, so as to accelerate Eigen’s advantage in NLP as well as ING’s digital transformation.”